Of Interest

what’s up with this? I was under the impression that this grant would be beneficial to students, but it seems like they just reduced my need by $400 and now my books are free… i’ve never even come close to spending $400 on books so this seems like a financial aid cut! in which cases will this actually help students financially?

…

I just came to the same conclusion. I’ve never actually spent a penny on books but have still needed every freaking penny I’ve been given. Where the hell am I going to come up with an extra $400 between now and my bill????!!!

Good questions. See the thread for further discussion and sensible points from Will Slack. See here for background. My previous (slightly edited) comments still apply.

How does anyone know whether or not this change will be “cost-neutral?”

1) Even if it isn’t, it may still be a good idea.

2) Let’s just focus on financial aid students. This semester, the College budgeted $400 for each of them. Call that $400,000. Now, did $400,000 really leave the bank account of Williams in September? I am not sure. The students on full rides did get a check. (But isn’t that a very small percentage of the student body?) But even students who are expected to pay as little as $1,000, did not get money from Williams for their books. They were just charged $1,000 instead of $1,400 because the College assumed that they needed the $400 for books.

But, next semester, things change. Put students in two different groups.

a) Those who got checks from Williams this time. Those students will just get checks that are $400 lower, but they get to buy books. How can the College possibly know that they will spend, on average, $400 at Water Street? (I am happy to believe that smart Ephs like Finan and Winters can come up with all sorts of spreadsheets that estimate such an outcome, but I have real doubts about the accuracy of those forecasts. More below.)

b) Those students who send checks to Williams, every amount from $1,000 to $45,000. Those checks will rise by $400.

3) Let’s consider some reasons why the 1,000 students on financial aid might spend much more than $400 per student now that books are free.

a) Why not buy all the recommended books as well as the required ones? They are free! Program only applies to required books.

b) Why not buy new books rather than used books? They are free!

c) Why wouldn’t professors significantly increase the number/price of required books and reclassify some recommended books as required? Right now, I (and other Williams teachers) try to take care in selecting books. We don’t won’t to screw students, especially students on financial aid. (Although we know that the College is supposed to provide enough aid to cover textbooks, we recognize that the aid may not be enough and, more important, that any leftover money can be used by students for whatever they want.) Now, books are free to half the students. And the other half of students almost all come from extremely rich families, at least relative to Williams professors. No need to worry about their book expenses! And if making a book (officially) “required” rather than just “recommended,” makes it free for half the students in the class, then I will be sorely tempted to do so.

In fact, does this apply for Winter Study? I suspect that a majority of my students are on financial aid. Why not just order up some books, call them “required” and help these students out? I may just do that . . .

4) To be clear, I have no opinion yet as to whether this is a good idea. I just have serious doubts about its cost-neutrality.

I would not be surprised if the 1,000 students on financial aid spent much more than $400 on books next semester. Anyone want to bet?

It would be fun to compare the forecasts which were made a few months ago with what actually happens. If anything, it looks like the program might save the College money since it is taking $400 away from students who have not in the past (and won’t in the future?) spend anywhere near $400 on books. And, to reiterate, I am sure that Ephs like Winters and Finan did a much better job in constructing a forecast than I could have in their place. I just think that these sorts of specific problems in management and estimation are educational for all concerned.

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7 Responses to “Book Grant?”

student10 says:

Now that I owe the school $400 more (when I never spent more than $100 on books thanks to the 1914 Library, where I volunteered every semester and thus got first pick- no long lines for me…), which messes up my whole financial aid calculation for this year, you better believe I’m gonna milk that for whatever it’s worth- buying the most expensive new books that I can find- after all, I get to keep the books. That means that I am free to sell them online ( not back to Water Street- their buy-back prices are ridiculously low) and hopefully I will make back some of what I lost. If I am the typical student, which I expect I am, there is no way this program is sustainable…

If you take science courses — biology, chemistry and all — one book can cost more than $200. Even some social sciences, like economics cost $100 and more. For course that use plain-old books — English, for example — $400 is high.

Question: Why in 2009 is Williams starting to pay for textbooks for scholarship students?

Wick: Please read the links. Williams has always budgeted $400 per semester for books for financial aid students. If you have no money, Williams (used to) give you cash for this. Now, they just give you the books.

Financial aid students used to get a $50/month stipend for living expenses – really helped with buying day-to-day necessities. It stung when they took that away. And now the book grant is gone too.

Arriving at Williams with about $300 in cash, the $250 check they issued at the start of my first semester (book grant + stipend) really, really helped. A lot. I would have had hell of a time getting set up for life at Williams without it.

(PS: Yes, I did work-study jobs, but the first paycheck for work study doesn’t arrive until several weeks after you arrive at Williams, so it doesn’t really help with moving-in and setting-up expenses.)

I don’t really remember receiving any kind of stipend from the school of the sort Ronit mentions. That could just be my memory, or that I was in a different finaid bracket.

As for my background, my parents’ contribution was about $900-1000 a year. This was less than what Williams budgeted for external expenses like travel and books, so my parents never actually cut a check to Williams (I don’t think), but they did cover plane fare and the like.

I think I paid a fair amount for books the first semester (languages), but never did again. 1914 Library got me almost everything I needed, and I could supplement that with checking things out from the College library and the ILL system, so that I very seldom even had to buy anything on Amazon.

A few years ago they had an expensive book voucher program. Finaid students could buy one new, expensive book from Water St Books, and the College covered it, but you had to donate it back to the 1914 Library at the end of the semester. This was a wonderful program. I got the new book I needed with minimum hassle, and I increased the collection of the 1914 library.

Jay-
I am also wondering what is happening to the 1914 Library’s store of books, but more than that I am wondering what the school is planning to do for Felicia Pharr, the woman who basically single-handedly ran the 1914 Library. She was one of the best parts of working there and she always was advocating for our needs- she got the inexpensive book vouchers to go up to $100 rather than $60 for us among many other things.

Given that the textbooks owned by the 1914 are pretty much exactly those textbooks needed by Williams students, that the 50% of Williams students not on financial aid still need to buy textbooks, and that many of those students are paying for books with their own money and so have every incentive to save money by buying used books, it seems like a perfect setup. The college could easily sell off the 1914 books to students over the course of a couple of years (more likely, they’d let Water Street do it) and probably make a decent amount of money out of the process.